“Beware the barrenness of a busy life,” the philosopher Socrates once said.
In today’s world, however, remaining busy has become the prevailing norm. When it comes down to it, the level of so-called “productivity” based on the amount of progress or production a person has is often worn as a badge of honor. Personal worth then, is an extension of our productivity. This notion is detrimental in itself but to break it down we must break down the busyness we tie ourselves too.
Is it truly as barren as Socrates makes it seem?
We tend to view the busiest of us as the most successful, and most fulfilled; a CEO with meetings, workouts, and post-work drinks scheduled seems to be the goal for many people. The truth is the feeling of busyness can be detrimental and defective for progress.
Don’t get me wrong, I do it too. I try to maintain a feeling of busyness by filling every single hour in my day with something—even if that means scheduling my showers. Everything that comes up, from work to using social media, is filling a period of time in my life. Like many people, when I have absolutely nothing to do, I slightly flip out. I don’t know how to relax. This is part of what the problem is. When we prioritize business we don’t have time to actually take care of our minds and brains.
Sometimes busyness can be beneficial, such as when providing a distraction from a traumatic event, but oftentimes, the busyness of our lives disables our ability to contemplate, and relax effectively. Instead, we want to mark things off our to-do list because for some reason, this makes us feel better about ourselves.
One of the most significant downsides to perpetual busyness is burnout. Physically, mentally, and socially, we may all be overexerting ourselves, leading to an eventual degradation of our mental and physical health that we won’t notice until it is too late. Keeping busy can push us to lost sleep, overwork ourselves, and never take a break. In addition to this, keeping yourself entirely too busy diminishes your relationships. Are we too preoccupied to attend a family event? Too wrapped up in ourselves to have a date night? In essence, we are taking away from a relationship that energy that is necessary to keep it functional, causing it to become strained and crack. Overall, being too busy can change us for the worse.
“But I can’t help it!” I get it, I really do. Neither can I. Which is why we need to unlearn what we’ve learned—we need to understand that the amount of things checked off on our to do list does not equate to what we are worth.
If you are like me, if you spend longer in bed than when your alarm goes off, you’ve already had a bad start to your day. When you are running late, it makes your day worse. And so on and so forth. To make up for it, you stay up later to do more work. A vicious cycle humanity seems enjoy deeply.
In order to become more balanced in our lives, it is important to remember the followings things: to prioritize our self-care, to set boundaries, to embrace mindfulness, and attempt to simplify.
When we prioritize taking care of ourselves, we will find ourselves taking breaks from our work to maybe eat food or do some breathing exercise, allowing us to rest and reset. When we set boundaries, we unlock the ability to focus on what truly matters to you. When we embrace mindfulness, we immerse ourselves fully in the moment, cultivating a moment of calm in such a chaotic place. When we attempt to simplify, we are resisting the desire to keep ourselves occupied in every second of the day.
It’s hard to unbusy ourselves, but that is why we must practice resisting busyness. It won’t be an easy task, considering how we are practically wired to be up doing things at all hours of every day—but that is part of the reason why it is so necessary.
So stop for a second. Smell the flowers. Slow down. Dance to your favourite song. Do some breathing exercises or yoga. Put these things into practic and resist the busyness that overtakes most of us. Go on, challenge yourself.
